Development of Low Cost Seamless CP-Ti Tubes

Commercially pure titanium (CP-Ti) is primarily used in marine and chemical applications that rely on aggressive heat exchange conditions such as those employed in the desalinization and chemical, pulp/ paper and petrochemical production and in the aerospace industry as a conduit / ductwork material. The development of low cost CP-Ti-tubes will further enable their use in these and other similar processing industries thus increasing their process efficiency at a relatively lower cost. In order to overcome the cost barrier in developing the same the authors have developed a process to manufacture seamless CP-Ti tubes via a novel direct powder to product process using low cost titanium hydride feedstock powder. The present work details the development of dehydrided CP-Ti billets by CIP/Sinter and CIP/Sinter/HIP processes which were further subjected to hot-extrusion and pilgering to develop seamless CP-Ti tubes. The mechanical properties and behavior of these tubes were compared with those produced by standard ingot method by performing statistical analysis via instrumented burst tests.